United States Goes Abroad

Americans become more interested in the rest of the world. The most influential groups were missionaries, businessmen, and imperialists.

Missionaries

• Protestants were the most active group
  • Overseas missionaries grew greatly
  • Mostly directed towards China
• These people saw Asians as inferior
  • Religiously ignorant
  • Uncivilized

Businessmen

• Businessmen grew tired of the competition in America
  • Sought to move outside of the nation to make money
  • Exports of American goods rose
• Big companies started to make branches overseas
  • The American Tobacco Company sold 1 billion cigarettes per year in Asia

Imperialists

• These were people who wanted to be a world power
• They wanted to build military strength
  • Many of them were Social Darwinists
  • Thought that it was their job to get to the top
• Spearheaded by Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan
  • Wrote the book "Influence of Sea Power upon History"
  • Argued that the only reason Rome conquered Europe was by Naval Power
  • Asked for a canal the allowed US warships to go through Central America
  • Also asked for the control of ports in Caribbean and SW Pacific
• Widely supported by McKinley and Roosevelt

Frontier Thesis- "The Significance of the Frontier in American History"

• Hypothesis on the reason for American expansion
• Written by Frederick Jackson Turner
  • Believed the frontier was essential to growth of the economy and spreading democracy
  • "How could the nation continue to prosper without the frontier?"
• Since the frontier of American was closed, people had to look for another "frontier" - in other countries

Foreign Conquests

• 1878, US secured rights to Pago Pago, a harbor in Samoa
• 1885, US leased Pearl Harbor from Hawaii
• 1889, US made a protectorate (watch) over Samoa
• Cleveland got into Hawaii affairs
  • Helped the planters in Hawaii overthrow the king and queen and established another protectorate (1893)

Jingoism

• These were people who felt that a nation's willingness to go to war was good
  • Enhanced a nation's glory
• The US had a great rise in eagerness for war
• Would play a great role in the Spanish-American War